Cufflinks
by scullyseviltwin
Summary: In her defense, he really hadn't hidden it well...


swayinisdancin and Dennis: They both rock.

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><p>In her defense, he really hadn't hidden it well. The chances that she would end up looking through his drawer of underwear was about-on any given day-fifty-fifty. The possibility of Leslie wearing a pair of his plaid boxers to bed wasn't entirely out of the question. The notion of her rooting around in there when she couldn't locate the particular pair of plaid boxers wasn't so far-fetched that it would never happen.<p>

As she roots around in Ben's drawer, it stands to reason that she will encounter underwear, as she has, on every other occasion, encountered nothing but underwear. Thus, when her knuckles brush across something distinctly solid and covered in velvet, Leslie stood stock still.

Instinctively, her fingers had curled around the box, tested it's size, its weight. She made inferences about what it could be. In the realm of "things that men keep in their underwear drawer" cuff links wasn't a ridiculous item to be on the list. Or even a cherish family heirloom, perhaps something he intended to give to her at some later point.

Like a necklace...

Or earrings...

Or...

Leslie ripped her hand out of the drawer like it had been burned and she shut the drawer with a little more force than necessary, photo frames on his dresser shaking and toppling. Quickly, she turned her back on the hard wood, crossed her hands over her chest.

Ben had emerged from the bathroom, hair askew from towel drying and had smiled at her, lopsided. "Hey."

For a moment, she'd felt like the worst person in the world, like she'd snooped on purpose.

But really, there was nothing out of the ordinary with a girlfriend rummaging through her boyfriend's underwear drawer for her favorite pair of boxers. "Was just looking for the plaid..."

"These?" he'd asked and had shaken his hips.

"Those," she'd sighed and went on to forget about the box in the drawer buried by his boxers for the duration of the evening.

It's only seven hours before she tells Ann.

Leslie doesn't know what to say, so she just freaks out quietly, to herself and to Ann, about the anonymous box in Ben's drawer. It's only been a week since she found it, but she can't get the idea of it out of her head. Ann does what she does best, gets super excited first and then rationalizes it away, because that's what Leslie needs to get through the day.

"Probably cuff links," Ann ventures, pretending to be sure, but doing so very poorly. "I mean, my father used to keep his cuff links in his... underwear drawer because who would think to look there in the even of a burglary, right?"

"...Right?"

"I don't know, Leslie! I'm asking you!"

They sit there, across from one another, Leslie staring down into her double caramel frappachino and Ann staring at her.

Leslie sighs into her straw, bubbles flurping up in her beverage. "Okay, so say it's... what are we calling it?"

Ann's gaze flits to the right, "Potato?" Her face scrunches, she knows immediately upon landing that that's _the worst_.

"Potato? Really Ann? That's maybe the lamest idea you've ever had." Leslie rolls her eyes and sucks a bit at her frappachino.

"Okay, so, you tell me, what are we calling it?"

There has to be a word they use, because god knows that they'll be talking about it a lot. In Leslie's office, in Ann's, when she treks over to her old stomping ground of city hall. Because this is something that Leslie can't get off her mind, she can't.

It's not as though Ben is hiding something from her; why should he have to show her everything he has in every one of his drawers. And if he is hiding something, hiding a... potato... it's not her place to know until he _asks_. Unless she asks him first, of course which now, would just be rude, if there is actually a... potato... in Ben's underwear drawer.

No, no, potato is the worst.

Leslie's nose scrunches up as she thinks, sucking down a little more of the caffeinated beverage in the process. "DVD?"

"DVD? Innocuous, common, though if anyone catches us talking about a "DVD" in Ben's drawer, they're going to assume porn."

Okay, so that's true.

She's perky, her whole face smiling with the effort of the grin she plasters on. "So, we'll be discreet!"

Ann is apprehensive. "You wouldn't rather pick another code word?"

"We'll be _discreet_." And even as Leslie says it, it's like, 'Like that has ever happened.'

Two months prior to her stumbling upon 'the DVD', everything is just dandy, steady as she goes.

She's been in the process of campaigning for mayor for, oh, what feels like a billion years now. A billion and one, really. If she'd been sleeping only three hours a night before the campaign, she supposes that it's less than an hour, at the present.

The burdens that she's had to carry over the past six months are lead in her bones, but it's a gratifying weight.

What hasn't been a picnic to deal with has been the press that's surrounded Ben. After she finally took their relationship (not _affair_, as much as Joan Colamezzo _insists_) public with the Department, it quickly leaked to the rest of City Hall. Chris hadn't been thrilled, but he also hadn't been in the position to create more trouble for the city than it was worth, so he, like the rest of the Parks Department, conceded that they would all be in cahoots.

They all agree that Leslie and Ben had started seeing one another a _least_three months after the Harvest Festival. Certainly after the Parks Department was granted money to build a baseball diamond on the Pawnee-Eagleton line and goodness, yes, weeks after they secured the Indiana Little League Championship.

They are loyal, doting, _honest_public employees, after all.

That didn't stop Chris from tisk-tisking them in the hallways whenever he could. (The tisk-tisking never lasted long, for Chris just could not abstain from telling either or the both of them what, just, fantastic jobs they were both doing. Really. Really, really.)

It's been more than difficult watching as they've picked apart Ben's life (as best as Pawnee can do, which is surprisingly thorough). They know what he got on his SATs, which colleges rejected him, Joan asks him more than once, point blank if he's sleeping with Leslie for the power.

"I don't _sleep_ with Leslie, I _love_ Leslie, and she's my partner. And I'm her's." It hadn't been the _best_ way to find out that the guy you're ga-ga over is in love with you, but Leslie took it and _flew_with it. (She'd maybe even pirouetted a few times...)

But that had shut Joan up for _quite_some time.

Ben had apologized later profusely, her hands sandwiched in between his. "I know this isn't ideal, but she, god Leslie, she gets to me!"

Leslie had chuckled, knowingly. "You become the human disaster."

"I really, really do," he'd deadpanned. "But that doesn't mean that what I said wasn't true, isn't true, it was just said in a moment of passion and Leslie-"

She didn't hear anymore from him because she cut off his words by pressing her lips to his. She's pretty good at that. (It works well, when she wants to get something that she wants from him that he's reticent to give. Leslie isn't _proud_of it, really.)

That had been two months ago. They'd since spent nights at one another's homes, sitting up late discussing campaign strategy, eating pizza, watching movies. Doing other things that took place in the bedroom, the bathroom, the kitchen and on one particularly-adventurous night, against the oak tree in her backyard.

Doing things that normal couples did, when one half of said couple was running for office. Like writing speeches for a presentation at the Pawnee Chamber of Commerce and deciding on a campaign slogan. Splayed out on her bed, on their stomachs, stockinged feet tipped at the knee, swinging this way and that.

They both feel more like teenagers hiding a secret than adults doing their jobs. It's kind of brilliant.

It's brilliant because she's as wrapped up in him as he is in her. It's breathtakingly obvious, just looking at him.

They're in bed together, both deleting the old emails from their Blackberrys when she turns to him and says, "Hey, I really like my life with you in it."

"Ditto," he says and they go back to deleting, but shift closer together on their pillows.

And even up until one month ago, when they'd made one of the biggest decisions of their lives, it's still all smooth sailing.

"April and Andy cordially invite us to celebrate their one-year anniversary," Leslie says, holding up the plain, xeroxed invitation over her head, waving it at him until he takes it.

When he does, it's with a chuckle, "Oh good, at our place, should be fun to clean up after." He balls the paper up and tosses it in the direction of the wastebasket.

A strange silence settles over them. 'Our' place. Because Ben still lives with April and Andy and Leslie still lives on her own in a _house_. A rather large, newly-organized...

House.

"Your place..." she begins, casually taking the opening that Ben has so recklessly left her. "And why do you have to clean up afterward?"

Ben shrugs, "Because if I don't, they'll allow empty beer cups to permanently fuse with the linoleum."

"Hmmmm."

"Hmm, what? Hmm?" Ben pries.

"Just hm, as in, what if you weren't their roommate anymore?" Leslie pauses, treading lightly. Ben blinks. "What if you were _my_roommate?"

"As in, move in with you..." he tests out the notion in his head, on his tongue, out loud.

"...yeah."

Ben slides himself into the only free chair available at her kitchen table, stacks of papers and books (notably, _Campaigning for Dummies_) occupying all the others. "Living in sin with Leslie Knope."

"Hah! I don't know how sinful it'll be."

"Hey," he begins, mock seriously, holding up his left hand. "I don't see a ring on this finger."

Leslie begins to laugh, "Oh, I see, Mr. Conservative, I have to marry you to get you to shack up?" It's not laughter anymore, she's cackling as though the notion is the funniest thing she's ever heard. When she finally regains her composure, she looks at him to find him staring at her, a small smile on his lips. "What?"

"Nothing," he says softly. "Clean out some room in the closets for me and I'm in."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah, of course."

Things happen that define them, in the weeks after they decide to co-habitate. Many things happen that define them individually, as a couple.

Leslie gets crushed in the first mayoral debate by the opposing candidate, Michael Fife (like the instrument, yes) because he's tall and graying and looks like the amalgamation of what America might look like if America were a middle-aged business man.

He's sharp, on point, a graduate of Notre Dame who speaks fluent Spanish. And Italian. And Croatian.

Yes.

Croatian.

Leslie has what can only be deemed as a rather mediocre grasp on the English language and even that is tenuous, as she does have the propensity for making up words for things, right on the spot.

Needless to say, she leaves the podium smiling, but feeling for all the world as though she's a colossal failure. She's crying before she even makes it to the room that's been designated hers for preparation, and the door is almost closed when Ben slips through and takes her into his arms.

"You were great, you were,on the issues, on your opinions, you were fantastic," he assures as she cries into his chest. "He's just... really good with words. Like... really good."

Leslie deadpans, "I know."

Ben sways her a little. "Doesn't mean you can't be really good with words, too. We'll just... practice."

"Practice..."

"Every night, we'll work on some things we can do to shift the way your rhetoric comes across. Maybe beef up your... whatever. We'll fix it."

"You mean fix me," she sniffles.

Ben shakes his head, "_You_don't need fixing. Your political persona just needs a slight buffering."

They buffer, together. She's so busy the 'DVD' is only a vague memory that nags at her, just before she falls asleep at night.

They don't discuss the fact that though Ben has spent the last decade and a half trying to steer clear of the public eye, he's fully immersed in it now. Back in the middle of things and only because she's dating him.

He _chose_this, and it stuns her.

"It's a non-issue," he says passively one evening as he's pulling into the driveway. "I'd do anything for you." He gets out of the car expecting her to follow, but she just sits there.

Dazed.

She doesn't think about the box for two weeks.

Two months and three weeks from his profession of love on air, he starts acting bizarre. He's intimate with her, overtly so, and then he's distracted, bordering on cold. It shakes her, but not enough to actually address, it's part of her attempt to let him be himself, and not pry into every aspect of his life.

As she attempts to do with everyone else.

Leslie's at his kitchen table, making notes in her padfolio here, grocery list and interview commitments there; there's a decent bottle of pinot noir halfway finished when he picks up an empty glass, goes to fill it and then places the bottle back down on the table.

"I, I... love you," he stares at her, says it like a revelation, with a conviction that astounds her. Leslie knows that Ben loves her, she's known it for a few months now but he's never said these words to her quite this way. It makes her think something is up.

Leslie's brow quirks, "What's up?"

Ben frowns. "Nothing is up I just..." The way he looks at her, the way his eyes focus on her face is so intense that it nearly frightens her. "I _love_you."

She smiles sweetly, wondering where he's going with this. "I love you, too, Ben."

He's frustrated, she can tell. It begins with a twitch in his cheek and radiates down his arms; his hands shake in agitation at his sides. "I..."

"You?..."

Ben's jittery, spins around to locate his keys and then pivots back around. "I have to go!"

Leslie glances up, not so much surprised as confused. "Uhm, okay, will you be-"

"I'll, yeah, I'll be back I just realized that I... didn't pick up garbage bags and... tomorrowistrashday!" he ends, triumphantly.

Leslie places her pen down with restrained suspicion, folds her hands together over the paper beneath. "We already put the trash...out on the curb and there's an empty bag in there, now."

"But well, you know how much I hate... not having extra... trash bags," he reasons.

So, he runs out to get a new box of Heftys, making sure that he-for whatever reason-has his Visa, Mastercard and his Discover in his wallet; she doesn't think about it much. She's got too much to think about, like how to spin this raccoon fiasco.

As it turns out, Leslie waits two months and ten days from her near-discovery to _actually_discover what's in the box. Leslie has had two months of covert telephone calls and gchat conversations with Ann.

Two months of Leslie quite literally going out of her head with wondering what it all means but not working up the courage to ask him. She's just at the end of mental tethers when he pulls the box out from the back of his drawer when she's getting in bed.

Her eyes are sniper rifles, trained on the box.

When the lid pops open, he moves to the closet, drags out a charcoal blazer, and holds it up to the cuff; her heart falls, but she wish it didn't. "What do you think of... this, for your..." Ben tilts his head to the left, the right. "These were my grandfather's and, I don't know I think they would look okay with the blazer and my grandfather served..."

There's a pause. Because Leslie is staring at him with wide, wide eyes.

"Why are you, are you okay?" The jacket hangs limply by his side as he walks over to her, to the bed.

Leslie smiles sadly before she exclaims, "They were cuff links!"

"Wait, uhm, what?"

Her eyes return to their normal, not-so-wide state. "The back of your drawer, they were cuff links."

"Back, no, I keep them at the front of my... drawer..." Ben trails off and stares at Leslie; her cheeks color noticeably.

"Ben, I saw the box, no, sorry, wait, if we're being honest here, I _felt_ the box in the back of your underwear drawer when I was looking for my favorite boxers-_you know the ones_-and I thought that-" she spills, it spills out. Oil, or molasses, something viscous.

Ben laughs, lightly. He places his arms over his eyes, rubs, throws his hand up in the air and tips his face towards the ceiling. Ben tosses his blazer on the end of the bed, sets the boxed cuff links down on the nightstand.

"The box... at the back of my drawer..."

Leslie scissors her hands through the air, "No, no, I'm sorry, I just-"

"It's an okay question, about the back of the drawer, I had to bring it up at some point, I did but-" He walks over to the dress and opens the top drawer, moving aside underwear until he finds what he's looking for.

Ben holds it in his fist, walks back towards the bed as she still rambles on with her unneeded apology.

"Ben, really, I'm sorry, I wasn't snooping but you should just, you don't have to do this, I don't need to know everything about everything and-"

"Are you serious, Leslie, are you seriously pre-empting my proposal?"

Dead.

Silence.

"Okay, wha... wait, you're... you're-"

Ben cuts her off, seriously. He gets down on one knee, next to the bed. "Oh yeah, right here, right now, because it's so romantic and you just had to be nosey-"

"I didn't mean-"

"I like that you're nosey," Ben continues, "And that you're anal retentive, and kind of even that you won't let me get in the shower with you because you say you look like Janet Leigh in _Psycho_ which I _still maintain_is hot and not creepy." He pauses, restarts. "I like you, and I like the person that you make me, I like that I don't care that there are concessions, because when I make them, I realize, they don't matter, in that grand scheme."

Leslie holds her breath.

"Oh, and also, I love you, so, that too." He wrestles with the lid of the box for a minute and then holds it out for her to see. "So, yes, this is me, proposing to you, and I guess it's implied but, you know, tradition and all..."

Leslie bites her lip.

Ben looks like he's about to puke.

"Will you marry me?"

Her mouth opens in a slow, silent scream, like she's getting it, like she's finally understanding. And her eyes light up and her hands reach for him and she says, "You are so stupid, and your cuff links are stupid because they made me think..."

"Not how I was hoping this would go-"

"That you'd do something like this! And then you did! And I ruined it!"

"Uhm, it isn't, wait, are you going to-"

Leslie tackles him, literally, to the floor, so that the ring is sandwiched between them, digging painfully into her left breast. "Stupid, stupid Ben, of course. I'll marry you. God, I..."

Ben laughs and manages to free his hand. With her still on top of him, he slides it onto her ring finger and they admire it together, in the light spilling in from the bathroom.

"Can't believe those fucking boxers almost gave it all away," he whispers as he kisses her jaw, her lips, her cheek. "This was a disaster."

"But so are we, so... fitting."

"Tcha," Ben laughs, sliding his hands over her hips. "Fitting."

Leslie calls Ann, later.

"The DVD? It _was_a DVD." she whispers, Ben asleep next to her.

But not really.

He wakes, "The code name for the ring was _DVD_? Really? Come on, you two are better than that."


End file.
